


Canvas & Brush

by giganyte



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Memories, Passage of time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giganyte/pseuds/giganyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are the setting sun - a soft glow and a collection of warm hues, silently burning as you dip down to caress the waves.<br/>She is the ocean - dark waters roiling against the sand, ruthlessly tearing apart shell and creature alike.<br/>(You hide your fire inside.) (She suppresses her gentler tendencies.)<br/>You are drawn to each other inexplicably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Canvas & Brush

There is a girl, before there is anything else.

She is just a blurred vision of color and feeling at this point, but you remember her like you remember the stained shirt that you wore to your first job interview.

She had hair just like yours and eyes just like yours, and you know that they thought you were probably brother and sister, but as you were both found under such cryptic circumstances (or so you’ve heard) they never knew for certain.

You were drawn to each other in a way that you cannot explain; she was familiar, somehow. For years, you cried every time someone tried to pick you up, but when you saw her face it was better than a pacifier.

You played together as small children because you were both somehow alienated from the rest; you liked to play with the stuffed animals and the ken dolls, and she liked to do puzzles and knock over towers with Tonka trucks.

It was… _pleasant_.

 

One day, you were both moved away.

You do not still keep these memories – their only remnants are the faint scent of lavender and the fuzzy brushstrokes of small hands and a pale face just out of reach of your consciousness.

You like to ruminate that she was make-believe. But you feel strange whenever you think on the whole thing too much.

 

You are the brightest person in your high school, and you graduate with special awards, though you keep quiet about them. You have no one to tell – your “group” is mostly just acquaintances that let you sit at their table and talk about your shitty music when their discussion topics dwindle.

 

*

 

You are small and thin and cold, walking home from a chilly day sometime in the middle of fifth grade, wrapping a green sweater with a black dog on it close around your body. (You hate green, and you’re not all that impressed by dogs. You do not know why you wanted this sweater, but whenever you look at it you get a feeling you can’t quite describe. You cried into it on your tenth birthday, whilst you sat alone at home and read _Matilda_ , and

you

do

not

know

why.)

 

You are walking down a lonely road as the snow roars in your ears, and the wind is picking up, and you are just about ready to lie down in the snow and die - but then you find a small black cat huddling under the roof of a bus stop bench.

“Oh, kitty,” you say, and you sweep in, quick as lightning, and scoop him into your arms.

You name him Casper and it seems ever so slightly off, but it’s a nice enough title and you sneak out to feed him every other night. Come spring, he leaves, but you do not cry. You look at the place on your floor where he once slept, and you sing quietly to yourself… and you pull the covers up over your head, and you go to sleep.

 

You are valedictorian, but you have no one to brag about it to, because you do not have friends. You’ve always gotten along with your teachers much more.

You are accepted into a good college and you study psychology because you are grasping at any straws that might someday allow you to unravel the enigma that is your own mind.

You wish with all your heart that you could someday know why you feel so melancholic.

 

You are browsing the internet and looking for something, anything, and you come across a comedian by the name of John Crocker.

He is brilliant.

So brilliant, in fact, that you spend hours upon hours listening to his shows on YouTube, reading about his old tricks and skits with a fervor that comes seemingly out of nowhere. It is only when you have exhausted every medium looking for traces of his presence that you start to become curious about the circumstances surrounding his personal life.

You have no idea why you do this. There is absolutely no rationality to any of your thoughts at this point; but you are trusting some odd, undefinable instinct rooted deep within you that this is _important_.

It just feels much too perfect, much too odd to not belong to something bigger. You do some research and then download Tor onto your laptop, and after a few weeks, start to get to the meat of it all, hidden underneath layers and layers of cover-ups. You forget to eat and you hand in assignments in all of your classes, but finally, you are able dig deep enough to get into the conspiracies.

You have been sending messages back and forth with a mysterious user on a forum for tinfoil-hat wearers. (Are you one of them now?) Your friend has finally decided that you are trustable, and has sent you a few files, which come with no other parting words. (You will try to thank them later, but will get no response.)

“Betty Crocker: NWO” reads a zip folder, simply put but impishly alluring in its plainness. You open it and begin to read, only getting a few sentences in before experiencing a mind-numbing headache that leaves you gasping on your floor.

It feels as if your head is about to explode, and just when it becomes too much, it subsides.

You see images flash, and your eyes are open but they are not; it is as if you are viewing them with a convergence of actual sight and mental sight, but you are not only seeing the visions but understanding exactly what is going on in each of the brief frames.

You see a gray-skinned mutant with a terrible grin, and you see a small boy and girl who you know you have seen before, in some other place, in some other time – in some other universe? You see him growing up and you see her running away, and you see a shedevil roaring as she forces her way into your sight until she is the only thing you can spot for the life of you. She is terrible and looming, her hair a tangle of void and her eyes unseeing; her mouth a graveyard of tombs with filed tips, sharp enough to cut diamond.

You feel as if she will overtake you.

Except for one figure. Tall and slender, with white hair and red eyes. Red eyes that you swear you can feel burning holes into your skin. You are on fire, and this man… he is so familiar. He is so familiar and you know that you must find him.

You have to.

 

The rest of the file only confirms what you have just come to know.

 

*

 

One night, you get a strange message on your blog.

You keep it for ironically shitty purposes, of course, but it’s not as if it ever gets any real visitors. It’s not as if you are actually ever going to be famous, anyway; you are just Dave.

Just Dave.

And yet…

 

_8:35 pm, Sunday, **TemptatiousTestament** commented:_

“Please email me sometime within the next twenty-four hours, Dave; we have a lot to discuss, as I'm sure you know. sdylquop@grr.la.”

 

You have never mentioned your real name on your blog.

**Author's Note:**

> [a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyjNCFje8bc&list=LLC1KEqOm8tFCqzrV7ToANmQ&index=6)


End file.
